On June 29, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a long-awaited decision addressing the legality of race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions programs in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard) and SFFA v. University of North Carolina (UNC), Nos. 20-1199 & 21-707. In a 6–3 ruling,1 the Court held that Harvard and UNC’s admissions programs, which account for race at various stages in the process, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the UNC/Harvard decision).
Brief Overview of the Decision
Nearly a decade ago, SFFA brought cases against Harvard and UNC alleging these universities’ use of race as a factor in college admissions violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Equal Protection Clause). In its challenge, SFFA argued that the Supreme Court’s landmark affirmative action decision in Grutter v. Bollinger was wrongly decided and should be overruled. Harvard and UNC countered that they did not improperly emphasize race or discriminate in their admissions decisions and that the use of limited race consciousness in admissions was consistent with decades of Supreme Court precedent.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, begins his analysis of the legality of the universities’ affirmative action programs with a brief history of the Equal Protection Clause,...
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